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Honey House

Hello all, I want to build a Honey House that will facilitate 500 Hives Max . Anyone have any good ideas on a floor plan and size of a building without getting too many questions thrown at me. Like type of extraction equipment etc ..

PM me if you actually have experience with planning how to build one please.

Re: Honey House

I run a 500 hive operation and have a few ideas for your honey house. Our facility has five rooms.Extracting room - this room has two extractors, the uncapping knife, capping dryer, sump, water heater and sink.Hot room - this room is heated by a water heater that circulates water through pipes in the floor. This room is where I move the honey supers that need to be extracted. Comb room - This is where I store all my supers after they have been extracted. It is large enough to hold about 1500 medium supers.Honey tank room - This is where I drain and package my honey.Storage room - this is where I store misc stuff. Honey containers, tools, equipment to be repaired.
On the side of my honey house is a garage where I park my truck.

In the winter I clean out my hot room and turn it into my workshop to build new equipment and repair old equipment.

Re: Honey House

If you go on cook and beals website they have floor plans for extracting rooms that should give you a general idea, otherwise Jon Bs idea sounds good. I'm not sure how necessary the water heater is in the hot room, we run 1500 hives and usually the summer heat keeps it around 100 degrees though we like to run a space heater on there over night to keep it toasty.

Re: Honey House

Ben: I would design the dimensions of my extracting room to accommodate a system like this should you choose to upgrade in the future. http://www.cowenmfg.com/pages.asp?pageid=97404
the unit is 19' long and would require at least another 8 to 10' on each end to fit comfortably. It is very important to spend some time strategically placing floor drains as well taking equipment placing and traffic flow into account. I would agree that a room with a heated floor directly adjacent to your extracting room would be a requirement as well. Make sure all doorways are wide and tall enough to accommodate whatever type of forklift you may choose to use in the future.

"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe."- Andy Rooney

Re: Honey House

Im in the process of building myself. Here are just a few ideas that I have put into my facility.

Windows, lots of natural light
I dont like walls, so I designed a large extraction room, and a large hot room which doubles as a wintering shed.
12 foot ceiling
tin walls and ceiling inside and out
floor wash drains or gutter. I chose a U drain gutter system because of its simplicity, hidden features and self cleaning option
I have water service in the building, hot and cold.
Fully serviced waste water and sewer system.

I built in an office/employee lunch room that will be finished with drywall. It allows a place for workers or visitors to gather and do business without having to be forced to enter the actual processing facility. Im finishing this area with drywall to add a touch of professionalism to the facility. My operation will be centralized in this area.

I have a loading pad on the outside of my honey house to load and unload my truck, with my lift truck, which has direct access to my honey house. This way I can have a clean pad and not track in dirt from outside as I load and unload my boxes.

I do not store any of my boxes in my buildings but rather store all my boxes in dry van semi trailers. I have a loading dock next to the honey house for convenient access. Semi trailers are cheap storage solutions and they are relocatable. I will store my boxes away from my facility to help minimize the risk of fire.

Re: Honey House

At the end of the day...once you've decided on the minimum number of rooms and their minimum dimensions....double both.
I have a one room 14x20 honey house. I extract from about 200 hives. Once the honey is extracted and bottled I have to store it elsewhere. I could handle another 100 hives if needed.
Do you have 500 hives today? Do you plan to store the bottled or barrelled honey for an extended period of time in this same house? I know you didn't want a load of questions but....way too many variables to throw out blanket solutions....in my opinion.

Let me never fall into the vulgar mistake of dreaming that I am persecuted whenever I am contradicted. - Emerson

Re: Honey House

Thanks for all the ideas , it is hard choice to make. I'm just having a hard time trying to get the project started . L O L
I don't know how much the project will cost , I guess the main thing would be getting a price on the construction of the overall build once I decide how big to make it for now , with the capabilities of making it larger as time goes on.

I need to think a lot on what I need , rather than what I want. So if you smell smoke , that's just me thinking : )

Re: Honey House

Originally Posted by Ian

Im in the process of building myself. Here are just a few ideas that I have put into my facility.

Windows, lots of natural light

I like natural light as well but, personally, I wouldn't overdo the windows. If you dont clean them regularly they can get unsightly in a hurry. The windows in our extracting room get cleaned daily during extracting season and they still never seem to look clean.

"People will generally accept facts as truth only if the facts agree with what they already believe."- Andy Rooney

Re: Honey House

Originally Posted by jim lyon

I like natural light as well but, personally, I wouldn't overdo the windows. If you dont clean them regularly they can get unsightly in a hurry. The windows in our extracting room get cleaned daily during extracting season and they still never seem to look clean.

one thing nice about windows is they attract the bees from the lights, mess on the lights or mess on the windows

Re: Honey House

I just built one last year that sounds similar to Ian's but I did my extraction room with no windows whatsoever... I just stick a broom handle under one overhead door to keep it up a hair and kill all the lights at the end of the day and it works like a giant bee escape... If you get the vapour proof T5 lights a pressure washer takes the bee crap off them pretty quickly. It's sort of a pain not being able to see out sometimes so I've been thinking about a dinger similar to what you'd find at a gas station to let me know if someone shows up. I'd definitely build big... It's amazing how much stuff a person accumulates that really can't sit outside